Over the last decade more parents are choosing to have their children taught at home as opposed to in a traditional school environment.

According to a study conducted by the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), during the spring 2010 there were a little more than 2 million K-12 homeschool students in the U.S.

A driving factor behind homeschooling becoming a more accepted way of learning is largely due to the accessibility of curriculum on the Internet, according to Rebecca Kochenderfer, senior editor of Homeschool.com and author of Homeschooling and Loving it!

[Children] can study with some of the best teachers in the country right in their home via Whiteboard learning or online classes, she says. Everybody is homeschooling now because in the information age, everyone is learning things and they have to learn it so quickly.

Computers can be a force multiplier, getting back that advantage. Also a problem with homeschooling is the absence of traditional classroom competitive pressure to keep up with peers. But using the internet students competing against peers can be restored, if not improved upon. Competition among peers and the prestige of accomplishment are big learning motivators.

Smart kids should be homeschooled because they need to be challenged and regular classrooms won’t do that. Dumb kids should be homeschooled because their parents can work with them to process things at their level rather than being left behind. Mediocre kids will get individual attention that classrooms can’t provide.

I’d have learned nothing but an inflated sense of my own abilities in a public school. My parents kept me from realizing just how smart I was until I was old enough to handle it.

That's a good point. Many new college degrees are the equivalent of an old high school diploma, which homeschooled students already have. Until the subprime-student education bubble plays out, a college degree doesn't mean much.

Homeschooling is the best decision we made...kids consistently perform better when they can be challenged on their individual level instead of being lumped in with a whole class. And yes, they DO GET SOCIALIZATION!

I like the idea of online certification, where a computer remembers everything a student learned and cycles through the skills and knowledge a bit at a time to refresh their memory. Before computers, administering tests was expensive, hence the one time test on a subject and then letting the student forget after that. Really learning anything and not refreshing the knowledge once in a while is a waste of learning time. A student shouldn't waste their time learning anything they don't plan to maintain.

The SAT has become a joke. It used to be boys scored higher than girls, whites and asians higher than others. The test makers keep tweaking the SAT questions under pressure from libtard colleges to obtain equal outcomes.

The MCAT test for medical school is still honest. On average the men still outscore women by about 10%, partially because men's brains are physically about 10% larger. But the libtards are starting to attack that one too. Under Obamacare they will have to start letting more subprime-students into medical school. Many sick people will suffer needlessly because of it and some people will die.

For the most part, homeschooling is less expensive than a private school education, but more expensive than a public school.

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With so many online options, why do we have brick and mortar schools? They are very little more than expensive babysitting option for two income households, in my opinion.

Thanks for posting this; more families are homeschooling, and exiting government schooling for other choices, such as Christian and charter schools. In addition, most large metro. areas offer a multitude of social opportunities including homeschool co-ops, church groups, boys and girls clubs, community sports and activities. This movement away from government schools will increase, until schools return to their purpose of teaching the public under parental, not government, authority.

Children can study with some of the best teachers in the country right in their home via Whiteboard learning or online classes.

The IT equivalent of mechanical automation advances every day. Just as machines replaced so many laborers, IT inventors will replace largely mediocre classroom teachers with world class instructors.

The era of prisoner children suffering through Leftist indoctrination may be coming to a close. I don't know what the tipping point is, but the day may be soon arrive when enough parents pressure the States to break the union grip on our kids.

I am a public high school teacher and my husband and I will be homeschooling our children. Actually the homeschooling started at birth, but liberals want us to think that we need Headstart, free preschool, and twelve years of indoctrination for real education to actually occur.

HOMESCHOOL PING

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36
posted on 06/14/2011 1:58:31 PM PDT
by metmom
(Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)

And....Parents ( for a refreshing change) will have full access to exactly what is taught.

We should do as Charles Murray recommends and move toward private credentialing or qualifying exams. Imagine the savings in time to the student who could move into his career more quickly, and thereby earn thousands upon thousands more in his lifetime for each extra year he spends in the workforce. Imagine the money saved in state budgets for each year that children are out in the workforce ( paying taxes) and not sucking government school dollars.

The private qualifying exams could start in the first grade. When the child masters a particular level of a specific subject he would move to the next level. He would have solid PROOF to show to an employer that he did indeed know the material and was literate and numerate!

We could start immediately. Any child of any age who passes a private GED-like exam should immediately be given an official state high school diploma. This would automatically open up scholarships to college and admission to the arms forces.

Charles Murray recommends ditching the formal B.S. and B.A. degrees for all but a small number of professions. He even feels that a B.S. or B.A. degree is unnecessary for moving on to advanced work on the graduate school level. Graduate school admissions would determine what skills and knowledge was necessary for their programs and using a combination of some college-based course work and qualifying exams would admit or reject the applicant.

they have to give up an income to have someone stay home with the kids. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

( Capitals for emphasis only)

I agree!

Yes! It is a flat out **reality** that many parents must work simply to find a reasonably safe neighborhood and safe housing. And....The taxes in these areas are often as much as the take home pay of one of the parents. This isn't going to change soon. They are the **facts**!

Ok....So....Let's really examine what how much learning is happening in an institutional school and how much learning is **entirely** due to the work done by the parents and the child, himself, at HOME, at the kitchen table, or at the child's desk.

It is important to know just exactly what is learned in school and what is learned at HOME because if 99% of all learning happens in the HOME then it would be far far far cheaper for the government to simply provide free day care and forget any attempts at schooling?

Also...Whether or not both parents are working, if 99% of the teaching and learning is done by the parents and the child, himself, in the HOME, then working parents of academically successful children are already homeschooling ( afterschooling).

Anecdotally....When I ask parents of academically successful children about their home habits, I find there is NO difference between the home lives of institutionalized children and homeschooled children. Both ( home and institutionalized) successful children are spending the** SAME** amount of **TIME** at the kitchen table or child's desk. Both homes value education and control electronics, take educational trips, read to their children, have books in the home, go to the library..etc.

It could be that the only thing the government schools are doing is sending home a very EXPENSIVE curriculum for parents and children to follow in the home.

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